Fracking lobbyists try to 'withdraw' fraudulent, failed petition

After a petition urging Colorado officials to allow fracking was voted down, an ugly truth emerged: most of the signatories didn’t know their names were on the paper. The lobbyists behind the bid are now trying to remove the petition from public record.

The petition was filed by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association
(COGA) and signed by 55 local business owner in the Fort Collins
area. Or at least that’s what the lobbyists claimed.

After the city's lawmakers voted 5-2 to ban hydraulic fracturing
inside city limits on February 19, three businesses listed among
the signatories voiced their curiosity about how their names, in
some cases misspelled, ended up on a petition they never
supported.

Further investigation revealed that almost half of the signatures
were fabricated or signed on behalf of business owners and not
their businesses. Some signatories claimed they never endorsed
fracking, knew nothing about the petition, or were misled and
didn’t know they were signing it as an individual.

The signatures were collected by EIS Solutions, an energy
consulting firm based hundreds of miles away in Grand Junction.

An EIS Solutions spokesman said the company “went to
pains” to ask the people if they could speak on behalf of
their respective business, while the COGA spokesperson said
people “obviously knew” what they were doing when they
signed the ‘Vote NO on the Fort Collins Fracking Ban’ petition.

COGA was quick to announce that they acknowledged some
“mistakes in the collection of signatures.” In several
cases COGA was even unable to identify signatories in order to
contact them to verify their intentions.

Citing these mistakes in an email to the Fort Collins city
council, COGA's president and CEO said the lobby group wanted to
“withdraw that petition from the record.”

But once a petition is part of the public record, it can’t be
withdrawn or removed.

“We’re not giving it back,” said Rita Harris, Fort
Collins' deputy city clerk.